php and drop down boxes

hi... i have a few things i need and dont know where to go to get some ideas/examples of how to do some things: 1. i need to know how to take info from a mysql db load it into a dropdown box and then select as the default choice whatever value was in the db: i.e. i have a combo box with the month/year. the drop down boxes option values for the month and year are numbers: for the month 1-12 and for the year: 2004-2038. now when lets say i have the variables: $edit['Month'] and $edit[Year'] which hold month/year values from the db...now how would i make those variables the default select choice in the combo boxes?? 2. i need to make a combo box of jan-dec and view all. the values for the drop down box will be 1-12 and 0 (0 is for view all). now the combo box will need to go to a db search for all relevant records on the month selected and show them on a page (the only catche is the combo box needs to be visible on all pages)... anybody know where i can go to find out how to do all of this?? any searches i tried to do all come back with loading dynamic content into a box but i dont need that...they never talk about making a default "selected" state with php and stuff...